1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for sawing semiconductor substrates such as wafers and, more specifically, to a wafer saw and a method of using the same employing multiple indexing techniques and multiple blades for more efficient sawing and for sawing multiple die sizes and shapes from a single semiconductor wafer.
2. Background of Related Art
An individual integrated circuit or chip is usually formed from a larger structure known as a semiconductor wafer, which is usually comprised primarily of silicon, although other materials such as gallium arsenide and indium phosphide are also sometimes used. Each semiconductor wafer has a plurality of integrated circuits arranged in rows and columns with the periphery of each integrated circuit being rectangular. Typically, the wafer is sawn or “diced” into rectangularly shaped discrete integrated circuits along two mutually perpendicular sets of parallel lines or streets lying between each of the rows and columns thereof. Hence, the separated or singulated integrated circuits are commonly referred to as dice.
One exemplary wafer saw includes a rotating dicing blade mounted to an aluminum hub and attached to a rotating spindle, the spindle being connected to a motor. Cutting action of the blade may be effected by diamond particles bonded thereto, or a traditional “toothed” type blade may be employed. Many rotating wafer saw blade structures are known in the art. The present invention is applicable to any saw blade construction, so further structures will not be described herein.
Because semiconductor wafers in the art usually contain a plurality of substantially identical integrated circuits arranged in rows and columns, two sets of mutually parallel streets extending perpendicular to each other over substantially the entire surface of the wafer are formed between each discrete integrated circuit and are sized to allow passage of a wafer saw blade between adjacent integrated circuits without affecting any of their internal circuitry. A typical wafer sawing operation includes attaching the semiconductor wafer to a wafer saw carrier, mechanically, adhesively or otherwise, as known in the art, and mounting the wafer saw carrier on the table of the wafer saw. A blade of the wafer saw is passed through the surface of the semiconductor wafer by moving either the blade relative to the wafer or the table of the saw and the wafer relative to a stationary blade, or a combination of both. To dice the wafer, the blade cuts precisely along each street, returning back over (but not in contact with) the wafer while the wafer is laterally indexed to the next cutting location. Once all cuts associated with mutually parallel streets having one orientation are complete, either the blade is rotated 90° relative to the wafer or the wafer is rotated 90°, and cuts are made through streets in a direction perpendicular to the initial direction of cut. Since each integrated circuit on a conventional wafer has the same size and rectangular configuration, each pass of the wafer saw blade is incrementally indexed one unit (a unit being equal to the distance from one street to the next) in a particular orientation of the wafer. As such, the wafer saw and the software controlling it are designed to provide uniform and precise indexing in fixed increments across the surface of a wafer.
It may, however, be desirable to design and fabricate a semiconductor wafer having various integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices thereon, each of which may be of a different size. For example, in radio-frequency ID (RFID) applications, a battery, chip and antenna could be incorporated into the same wafer such that all semiconductor devices of an RFID electronic device are fabricated from a single semiconductor wafer. Alternatively, memory dice of different capacities, for example, 4, 16 and 64 megabyte DRAMs, might be fabricated on a single wafer to maximize the use of silicon “real estate” and reduce thiefage or waste of material near the periphery of the almost-circular (but for the flat) wafer. Such semiconductor wafers, in order to be diced, however, would require modifications to and/or replacement of existing wafer saw hardware and software.